The Philosopher Stoned, stoned

Things got a bit ugly towards the end there, but by midnight I submitted my project. As of Sunday, I had yet to write nearly half of the lyrics and to record the lyrics to all but one song.

About one third of the album seems to be my infamous use of kung fu clips, but I did a little work warping them into something a bit more interesting, and my original music plays throughout these parts as well as the song portions. The entirety of the record is OVER 45 MINUTES, so I am certainly pleased.

At some point during the composition process, I was told the music is reminiscent of that of Shaq-Fu; I am definitely down with that! The use of phasing drums is effective, but at times seems to disrupt the flow.

For those of you familiar with my original plan (according to my first blog post), things have changed slightly, particularly my idea to use each tonic pitch as respective root notes in an album-long chord progression. I decided to treat this series of pitches as one specific voice following the progression, instead of necessarily making them root notes. The virtual chord progression is still there, but I felt this approach gave the album a more convincing melodic function. Additionally, I scrapped the idea of dividing the album into eighths.

BEWARE: Rhythms are loose and recording quality is low. Some sounds are at times difficult to hear while other moments straight up distort. That being said, I actually love this album. I feel that lyrically focusing on one story, combined with incorporating this "macroscopic form", has done much to give my submission for RECORD TIME VI an enjoyable and cohesive quality.

I hope you all enjoy "The Philosopher Stoned", and I very much look forward to reading other blogs and listening to other contributions.

Multitudinous congratulations to those of you that completed projects for this!

- Ed Mellen (The Killer Meteor)